One of the new features that Microsoft has added to Windows 7 is the ability for users to change the background of the Windows 7 login screen. In previous versions of Windows making such changes was always a bit of a hassle, and had quite a few limitations, but now it seems that Microsoft have listened to user feedback, and made such customisations comparatively easy.

Standard Windows 7 Login Screen

All that’s involved in making this tweak now is a simple registry edit, and storing of your chosen background in a specific location, and you’re done.

Rather than give potentially confusing instructions for editing the registry, we have provided a simple .reg file for you to download and merge with your registry. Simply click here to download the file, and then follow the instructions below.

First prepare the image file you wish to use as your background, there are only two restrictions

The image must be saved as a .jpg file

The image cannot be and larger than 256kb in size, also, although not strictly necessary, we would recommend making the image the same resolution as your screen to avoid excessive distortion.

Right click the registry file you downloaded above, and select the ‘Merge‘ option from the context menu.

Click the Windows button, and click ‘My Computer‘

Navigate to the folder C:WindowsSystem32oobe

In this folder create a new folder called Info, and then inside the ‘Info’ folder create another folder called ‘backgrounds‘

Save the image you prepared above into the ‘backgrounds’ folder, and rename the image ‘BackgroundDefault.jpg‘

All you need to do then is to reboot your machine to make your changes active.